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Monday, February 18, 2013

The Devils find themselves back in second place in the Atlantic Division tonight after the Pittsburgh Penguins defeated Buffalo earlier today to take back the top spot in Atlantic and the Eastern Conference. That demonstrates how quickly things can change after just one sub-par week.

Two losses in three games following a five-game winning streak isn’t something to get overly alarmed about, but the Devils admit their level of play has dropped off after a dominant eight-day stretch in which they beat the Islanders (3-0), rival Rangers (3-1), Tampa Bay (4-2) and Pittsburgh twice (both 3-1 wins).

“We’ve lost a little bit of that edge you need and we’ve got to get that back,” Devils coach Pete DeBoer said today. “I think that was such a daunting week you emotionally get yourself invested in that and then unfortunately there is a little bit of a drop. The key for us is to make that drop as (brief) as possible and get our game back to where it needs to be.”

The Devils lost a little of their focus after sweeping a home-and-home series from the Penguins last weekend and it showed in their 4-2 loss to Carolina on Tuesday. They played well at times in that game, but weren’t sharp against a team playing the second game of a back-to-back set and the final game of six-game road trip.

On Friday, they were sloppy in their own end in falling behind 3-1 against Philadelphia in the first period before rallying for a 5-3 victory. Similar breakdowns and a suddenly struggling penalty kill doomed them, however, in a 5-1 loss to the Islanders on Saturday.

“There’s been a lull in our game over the last three games,” center Adam Henrique said. “There’s been stretches where we’ve played good. There’s stretches where we played bad. We’ve fallen behind in games and we’re playing catch-up. It started with areas of the Carolina game and then it went to Philly where we didn’t come out with a good start and were down 3-1. We battled back there and then last night we didn’t play our game. We just beat ourselves in areas and our PK has been struggling a bit. We’ve had stretches there where we’ve been good, stretches where we haven’t been good and given up too many goals. So, there’s times when we’re beating ourselves.”

The “lull” is something that happens from time to time during a long season, but can be more costly in a lockout-shortened campaign like this one. That’s why the Devils want to make sure they don’t let this one last any longer.

“I think it’s part of the season. You’re going to get some ups and downs,” goaltender Martin Brodeur said. “It’s just happened after a big week and teams maybe we overlooked to a certain extent with Carolina coming in and we just figure everything is going to be automatic. I think it just makes us realize that we’re not a team that’s going to dominate every game. We’re going to have to win every game that we play. We have to earn it. It just puts more emphasis on us to be accountable to the way we play every night.

“Nothing is going to come easy to us. It’s just the way our team is made. Hopefully, we kind of learned a little bit this week that we need to play hockey and nothing is going to happen easy.”

The Devils have a chance to bounce back Monday against a struggling Ottawa team that is 2-5-1 in February after going 5-1-1 in January. The Senators are banged up with No. 1 center Jason Spezza (back surgery) and reigning Norris Trophy winner Erik Karlsson (lacerated left Achilles tendon) out for the season and left wing Milan Michalek sidelined with a knee injury.

“It’s nice we have a quick turnover,” Henrique said. “You want to get right back at it coming out a game that stinks. We have a chance to get back to the way we need to play and we know what we have to do. Our battle level needs to be higher, we have to win more puck battles, one-on-ones, and it will come from there. We’ve got to come out and have a good start and just build from there throughout the game.”

After playing 10 of their first 15 games against division opponents, the Devils won’t be facing a natural rival for a while. Their next divisional game isn’t until March 13 against Philadelphia.

So, the Devils will have to find a lot of the motivation from within.

“It shouldn’t be an excuse,” DeBoer said of not playing any close rivals for nearly a month. “The one thing you learn in this league is anybody can beat anybody on a given night. I think we understand that and we just have to find that edge to our game again.”

***The Devils spent some time today reviewing their recent penalty killing troubles. The Devils led the NHL in penalty killing last season with an 89.6 percent efficiency, which also set a modern NHL record, but have been hot and cold on the PK so far this season and rank 20th in the league at 80 percent even.

After they gave up three power-play goals in a 5-4 overtime loss to the Islanders on Jan. 31, they went on a four-game run in which they killed off 19 consecutive power plays. In five games since then, however, they’ve allowed eight power-play goals, including at least one in each contest and three Saturday against the Islanders. Over the last three games, they’ve allowed six power play goals on 12 opportunities.

“We talked about,” Henrique said. “We know it’s a scenario we’re going to have to clean up. We’re making mistakes where maybe at times last year we weren’t making those mistakes. It’s something that we’re going to fix. We had a good stretch where were killing penalties really well. We know where we have to be better. There were three games in a row there where we played really well on the PK and we won the three games. These last three games we haven’t been very good and it’s shown.”

The Devils had studied where the penalty killing breakdowns occurred. DeBoer noted that it’s a matter of finding the right balance between being aggressive, but not too aggressive to the point where they leave themselves vulnerable.

“You look for those trends,” DeBoer said. “You’re looking for where the goals are being scored from and we’re looking for symptoms of why. That’s a process we go through as a coaching staff. We try to kill with an aggressive mindset. Sometimes when it becomes over aggressive you get yourself out of position. At the same time, we’re not good when we’re passive. So, we’ve got to find that fine line.”

Brodeur said most of the breakdowns on the PK have occurred “down low, closer to the net.”

“Not many goals were scored by shots from the point,” Brodeur said. “I think Pittsburgh scored one from a one-timer from the top that got tipped, but the three (Saturday vs. the Islanders) were close, within the faceoff dot in. It’s just a matter of breakdowns and when you do have teams that are able to execute real well and you’re a pressure team, you’ll be vulnerable at one second if these guys execute. They’re hockey players too. They want to make good plays and we’ve got burned on a few good performances by guys.”

Other teams have definitely been studying the Devils’ PK and learning how to execute against it from the teams that had success against it – such as Florida and Los Angeles in last season’s playoffs.

“You have to give some of these other teams some credit too,” DeBoer said. “I thought John Tavares and their group on the power play were great last night. We had gone in there and shut them out 0-for-7 last time we were in the Island (a 3-0 win on Feb. 3), so they obviously made some corrections too. That’s what it’s about.”

“We had some great stretches this year killing penalties, we had a great penalty kill last year and it will come back,” Brodeur said. “It’s just a matter of bounces and teams know how we kill more and more. They study us too, so a little adjustment will be made and we’ll be fine.”

About

TOM GULITTI has covered the New Jersey Devils for The Record since 2002. Prior to that, he covered the New York Rangers for four years. Gulitti joined The Record in 1998 after six years at The North Jersey Herald News. He graduated from Binghamton University in 1991 with a Bachelor of Arts in Rhetoric-Literature.